Cooking Saffron Roast Lamb

Our answer

Nigella's Saffron Roast Lamb with Sticky Garlic Potatoes (from FEAST) is a marinated leg of lamb that is roasted in a fairly hot oven until bronzed on the outside and still pink in the centre. Most of the marinade ingredients (including the halved and squeezed-out lemons) should be in the bottom of the roasting pan and the sides of the pan should shield them from the heat of the oven to an extent. Also the pan should be large enough to hold the leg of lamb quite snugly, as if the ingredients are spread out in a very large pan they will dry out more quickly and could catch.

The cooking time will depend on the size of the leg of lamb but the cooking time is approximately 1 hour for most medium-sized legs (approximately 1.6kg). You could check the pan after 30 minutes and if the ingredients look like they are drying out quickly then add a good splash of water to the bottom of the pan to help to prevent them from colouring too much. We would also mention that the 220°C oven temperature in the recipe is for a regular oven and if you have a fan or convection oven you will need to reduce the temperature to around 200°C.